Why this?

The occasional poem of my own and a generous helping of work by others that I find inspiring. Site is named for a beloved book by one of my favorite writers, Italo Calvino, whose fanciful work lights--and delights--my soul.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Poets and storytellersmove into the vacanciesEdward Hopper left them.They settle down in blank spaceswhere the light has been scoured and bleachedskull-white and nothing growsexcept absence. Where something is missing,the man a woman waits foror furniture in a roomstripped like a hospital bedafter the patient has died.Such bereft interiorsis just what they've been looking for,with their lumpy beds, their birdcages and decks of cards,their dog-eared books, their predilectionfor starting fires in empty rooms.--Lisel Mueller

--after Edward HopperThe lonely man performs some necessary ritual behind a pump. We cannot tellexactly what it is he does because the angle is so odd. A rack of cansof oil between two pumps on the island stands, as they al- ways do, conveniently avail-able, in easy reach of any needy motorist. The light is low, and the trees,massed heavily behind the man and his pumps, march darkly off to the right. A modest shockof roadside weeds attends the greenery as it condenses. On the periphery,out of our ken, shines a source of artificial light. We are meant to feel the clutch of theevening. It is not benevolent. The artist has invested his talentin loneliness. The values and the crusty inflections of his particular dictiondemonstrate devotion to the modest fears of the soul in the longest momentsof late after- noon. A sign hangs white above the station. Mobilgas and Pegasus. A flag of sorts, a standard, here, to more than gas. The language, though hard, is clear.--Sidney Wade

Imagine a town where no one walks the streets.Where the sidewalks are swept clean as ceilings andthe barber pole stands still as a corpse. There is nowind. The windows on the brick buildings areboarded up with doors, and a single light shines inthe all-night diner while the rest of the town sits inits shadow.In an hour it will be daylight. The busboy in thediner counts the empty stools and looks at hisreflection in the coffee urns. On the radio theannouncer says the allies have won another victory.There have been few casualties. A man with a wide-brimmed hat and the woman sitting next to him aredrinking coffee or tea; on the other side of thecounter a stranger watches them as though he hadnowhere else to focus his eyes. He wonders ifperhaps they are waiting for the morning buses toarrive, if they are expecting some member of theirfamily to bring them important news. Or perhaps they will get on the bus themselves, ask the driver where he is going, and whatever his answer they will tell him it could not be far enough.When the buses arrive at sunrise they are empty ashospital beds--the hum of the motor is distant asa voice coming from deep within the body. Theman and woman have walked off to some darkstreet, while the stranger remains fixed in his chair.When he picks up the morning paper he's notsurprised to read there would be no exchange ofprisoners, the war would go on forever, the Cardinals would win the pennant, there would be no change in the weather.--Ira Sadoff